Scissors
by thelittlegreennotebook
Summary: "Muggles have a lot of accessories. It's hard to keep track." "Not that you try," Lily scoffed. "Well, maybe I would have paid more attention to their purposes if I knew that six years later I'd come across Lily Evans trying to maim herself with one."


**Scissors**

**A/N: I don't own anything! Enjoy!**

"Bloody—_Ah-ha_! Didn't get me that time, did you? Little bugger."

A grin crawled across James's face as he leaned against the stone archway at the base of the boys' dormitory staircase. He was gazing down at the scene in front of him, not interested in keeping the amusement off of his face.

Lily Evans sat on her knees in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, hair curtained around her face no matter how many times she swept it back with a hasty touch. James couldn't discern her expression from where he stood, but he could imagine the fine details of her features from the tone of her voice. Her nose would be scrunched just slightly in annoyance, but her eyebrows would be bending together in frustration. And maybe, if he was lucky, her bottom lip would be tucked delicately between two rows of perfect teeth as a sign of focused concentration.

He observed her shoulders heave with a heavy breath as the redhead blew out an impatient sigh. Then she dove right back into her task, grasping the ribbon and pinching it between her thumb and…what was _that?_

"Stop!" James called out as he stepped down from the last stair, and Lily snapped her head up. "What the hell are you doing, Evans?"

The polyester was still clamped between her flesh and the strange double-bladed contraption, which is what concerned James the most.

He saw her face contort from the very picture he had envisioned before into a look of surprise.

"James," she exclaimed in a quiet voice. "What are you still doing up?"

"Waiting for jolly old Father Christmas," he replied jokingly, approaching her. When he got close enough, the Head Boy snatched her thumb away from the edge of the metal and nicked the weapon from her other hand. "What is _this_?" he demanded, his voice laced with disdain as he scrutinized the object.

"_Scissors,"_ Lily told him in an exasperated tone, reaching up to grab them back. James jerked his arm away, still intent on staring at the orange-handled device dangling in front of him. "Haven't you learned about them in Muggle Studies?"

"Vaguely," James recalled, recognizing the name of the object from a distant memory. "Muggles have a lot of accessories. It's hard to keep track."

"Not that you _try_," Lily scoffed.

"Well, maybe I would have paid more attention to their purposes if I knew that six years later I'd come across Lily Evans trying to _maim_ herself with one."

"I wasn't trying to maim myself," Lily retorted, rolling her eyes and sitting back on her bum before crossing her legs into a pretzel.

"Then what the bloody fuck were you doing?" James inquired, crouching down next to her and placing the _scissors_ on the opposite side of his person, farthest away from Lily.

Lily gestured to the pile of gifts in front of her by means of explanation. There were about twelve in total, some wrapped and some bagged, all with ribbons wrapped around them. A select few of the ribbons—whether green or gold or silver or red—coiled perfectly, while others hung limply as the results of lame curling attempts.

"You curl ribbons with these…blades of death?"

"Well, they aren't marketed for maiming purposes, now are they?"

"Clever," James replied dryly, reaching forward and gently jostling a small package between his fingertips. He flicked the attached tag over with his index finger and read in her unmistakable looping handwriting:_ Happy Christmas, Mary! All my love, Lily._ "A little late to be wrapping gifts, yeah? It's technically Christmas morning."

Lily shrugged her narrow shoulders. "It took me a while to find the perfect present for everyone."

"And you couldn't find a curling spell to replace putting a blade to your skin?"

"That's not how it _works_, James," the Head Girl informed him. "You slide the flat of the blade down the ribbon and it curls it. It's not even meant to harm you."

"Oh, really?" said James, reaching over to where Lily was trying to slide her fingers out of view and catching her hand in his. He brought it up between them, holding it delicately as he examined it. "Then what's the bandage for?"

"It's not _my _fault if I'm a shoddy curler," Lily argued, tugging her fingers back. A small piece of adhesive cloth was wrapped around her thumb where she had accidentally cut her own flesh and came out of the experience bearing a decidedly _straight_ ribbon. "I can wrap presents flawlessly, position the tissue paper with the right amount of disarray; curling is my downfall."

"We all have our fatal flaws."

"Except you, of course."

"You catch on quickly."

Lily let out a soft burst of laughter and James smiled at the sound of it. "Now are you going to give me back my scissors or not?"

"Absolutely not," James vowed, sliding the death trap further away from the redhead. "Like I said, can't you just find a spell? I'm certain you ought to encounter one somewhere."

"I actually have a hoard of books from the library in my dormitory," Lily confessed. "But, like you said, I'm getting started rather belatedly and I don't have the time to find a curling spell. Which is odd, because it seems like something we would have learned in first or second year."

James nodded contemplatively. "Well, it depends on whether you'd rather waste time trying to find a spell or cutting your thumbs to shreds. I'll help, if you'd like."

Lily looked over at him with softened eyes. "You'd do that?"

"I've got to stay alert for Father Christmas somehow, don't I?" James commented, smirking. "Seventeen years and I still haven't managed to catch the sneaky bastard."

"Then tonight's the night, I reckon," Lily assured him, standing up. Her legs unfolded beneath her and (surprisingly) for the first time, James's attention was turned to the fact that she was only wearing green cotton boxer shorts below a loose white sweater that was adorned with the embroidered image of an ornament.

The Head Girl dashed up the steps to her dormitory, leaving her Head Boy to compose himself in the common room. When she returned (with at least fifteen tombs, no doubt), they jumped to work straight away.

James grappled with the _Standard Book of Spells_ years one through four while Lily skimmed through the older texts.

"Springing spell?" James offered after about ten minutes of searching, but Lily shook her head, not even looking up.

"Tried it a little while ago—hardens the ribbon into a metal spring," she explained, and they returned to their search.

A few minutes later, she cried out in excitement. James glanced up from where he sat on the floor, leaning up against the couch. "Looping spell!" she said, grasping the end of a ribbon and drawing her wand. James watched as she muttered something under her breath. Instead of curling, though, the ribbon just looped into three loose circles instead of a mass of curlicues that were present on approximately half of Lily's finished gifts.

She pursed her lips, disappointed. "Nope. Keep looking."

And so they did. The Heads Students spent nearly two hours skimming through the texts that Lily had found, switching positions on the hard floor to ease the soreness of their bums or elbows or knees. Along the way, they tried any spell that came even remotely close to something resembling the much-desired curl. There were twisting charms and spiraling spells and coiling incantations and a number of other so-close-yet-so-far forms of magic that were just a touch away from being accurate.

The entire time they exchanged an almost constant flow of civil conversation. They had shared a tentative friendship ever since the beginning of term, but the talks rarely dipped deeper than a shallow level. Now, though, Lily found herself sharing about what it was like to enter into the magical world as a muggleborn when she was eleven. James, in turn, revealed some aspects of his imperfect family life. For the most part, though, they kept the mood relatively light and humorous. After sharing the scheme behind some of the Marauder's best pranks, James was certain he would never tire of hearing Lily Evan's laugh.

"Have you gone through this one?" Lily asked, picking up a thin book with a deep blue cover.

"Nope," he told her after twisting around for a brief glance. "Go at it."

"Anything in the one you're on now?" Lily inquired wearily from the floor. She was lying flat on her back with her legs extending straight into the air, the backs of her knees supported by the arm of the couch. James, on the other hand, lay on the couch with Lily's sock-clad toes wiggling just above him.

"Nope," James repeated, staring determinedly at the book in front of him that was all about gift-wrapping technique and was covered with enough pink to ensure that he would never be caught dead with the thing during the day. He tossed the book unceremoniously to the floor with a sigh and picked up another thin one from the pile that sat between him and Lily.

"You can go to bed, if you'd like," Lily suggested for about the fiftieth time.

"I'm honestly not tired," James said truthfully. "And besides, I'm too invested. Too determined."

"Oh, I'd better watch out," Lily joked. "You'll never give up now."

"Shut it, you," said James, reaching behind his head and dropping the book he was holding over the edge of the arm of the couch. He heard it hit Lily's stomach with a satisfying _thud_, which was echoed with her laughter not a moment later.

"You're such a ponce, James," she said lightly, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

"Careful," he warned. "I don't _need_ to be helping you."

"Of course not," she agreed. "But if you stop now you know I'll just go back to _maiming_ myself with my scissors. Besides, you wouldn't dare quit knowing that I could threaten you with telling everyone in school that James Potter stayed up all night researching gift-wrapping techniques."

Her upper half appeared in his line of vision as the redhead stood and stretched, arching her back and raising her arms in the air. The movements exposed just a sliver of midriff where her white sweater rode up, and James glanced away.

"Merlin, that was uncomfortable," she murmured, twisting to each side to loosen up her muscles.

"Here, come to the couch," the Head Boy offered, sitting up and easing into a sitting position so he was only reclined across half of the maroon cushions. He pushed adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his untidy hair. "I'll share."

"How gentlemanly of you," Lily commended, a twinkle in her emerald eyes. As she plopped down on the opposite side of the couch, she yawned.

"Maybe _you_ should get to bed," James advised.

Lily only shook her head. Her cascade of deep red waves—which had gotten loosely tied back with some spare ribbon sometime in the past half hour—swayed back and forth tauntingly. "And leave my gifts in a state of halfway chaos?"

James glanced at the small pile of gifts that had remained untouched since he had entered the common room. "There's nothing halfway about it," he teased.

The redhead reached out and kicked him with her foot, trying to keep a smile off of her face. James only laughed in response. The next ten minutes were relatively silent, until Lily closed the thin blue book with a snap.

James raised his eyes to see her face. "Find anything?"

"Nope," Lily said quickly, before dropping the finished book to the floor. "So, why'd you stay here for winter hols? You normally go home."

James put aside his own book and rubbed his eyes. "I've gone home the past two years because my mum's sick, but I love Christmas at Hogwarts. I wanted to be here the last year I can. I'll go home for Easter."

"I'm sorry," Lily said sincerely. "I-I…didn't know."

"You mean Mum?" James wondered, his brow furrowed. "Oh, she's fine. Well, actually, she's not," he amended quickly. "She's a lot better than before, though. My parents…they're really old, even for magical folk."

"It's good that she's doing better now," Lily said, somewhat awkwardly, despite the fact that James didn't seem uncomfortable talking about it. She had never had to comfort him over anything.

He just nodded. "And you? Why'd you stay?"

She shrugged. "It's easier. My sister got married just last summer and my mum is going to visit her and her husband at their new house in Surrey."

"You're not invited?" James speculated.

"I am," Lily told him. "I'm invited, but not welcomed."

"Why not?" James demanded, looking almost offended.

"I don't know. It was…" Lily paused, debating whether she wanted to take this leap. But she and James were mates now, weren't they? They had been ever since mid-September. "It was easier when Dad was around, and we could joke about Petunia's—that is, my sister's—husband together. He's a hunk of a bloke, huge and rather impolite but just _normal_ enough for Petunia to find him perfect. But once my dad died so did Petunia's formalities, and nothing's been the same since."

"I'm really sorry, Lily," James intoned, and he looked it, too.

"Don't be," Lily insisted. "I'm not. I mean, I'm sorry about my dad, of course. But not about Petunia and Vernon, her husband. I just feel bad for my mum, you know? She has to juggle the both of us in these separate worlds, and if I had it my way she wouldn't have to. But Petunia's the one that alienated me."

"I'm sure your mum doesn't mind, as long as she knows the both of you are happy," James comforted, and Lily smiled at him genuinely.

"Thanks."

"Anytime," he said, and reached over to pluck the very last, rather large book from the pile beside him. He held it up. "Now, we've one book left. Do you want to tackle it or would you rather I have the honor?"

Lily pushed herself forward until she was crouched on the balls of her feet. "Move over," she commanded. "We'll do it together. It'll go twice as fast, right?"

James nearly choked on his own spit as she nudged him over and eased herself down onto her stomach next to him. Nevertheless, he managed to cough out a short: "Right."

The couch allowed enough room for both of them to lie side by side on their stomachs, but not enough to the point where they could avoid every single inch of their sides from touching. Both Heads were propped up on their elbows, but everything from their feet to their hips to their shoulders were in constant contact. James felt the heat from her body through his flannel pajama bottoms and thin, white cotton t-shirt. In fact, the answer to their never-ending ribbon-curling question could have been staring him out at him in huge, bold-faced text and he still wouldn't have been able to focus on finding a solution on the pages stretched out before them.

As the pair rounded page two hundred, their yawns intensified and became increasingly frequent. Approaching three hundred and James was making a physical struggle to keep his eyes from fluttering closed. And neither Head Boy nor Girl ever got a glance at page four hundred, or even three hundred sixty-five.

If the bright sun failed to wake them, Sirius Black was sure to do so.

"Heartwarming," said a goading voice from above the couch. James eyes flickered open. He took in the scene around him with tired eyes and went to rub the sleep from them before discovering that his arm was immobilized by the weight of a certain Head Girl using it as a pillow. James himself had been sleeping atop the tomb that they had been skimming. Their bodies were rather close, his chest nearly pressing against hers and one of her calves caught between his two, their feet tangled.

He watched as the bright emerald color of Lily's eyes came into view, and when she saw him she immediately sat up.

"Hmm," hummed Sirius as he looked down upon them with a teasing glint in his eye, his palms pressing into the arm of the couch. "Cozy night?"

"You're a git," James said, awakening fully. The arm that Lily had been laying on was completely asleep and tingling uncomfortably. The Head Girl herself was pulling down the hem of her shorts, but not jumping off the couch in a babble of explanations as James had expected.

Sirius, however, ignored James's insults. "Since when are Hogwarts's esteemed Head Students sleeping together?"

"We weren't _sleeping_ _together_," Lily said snidely. "We simply _fell _asleep."

"Well I certainly hope you simply fell asleep_ after_ rather than _before_, if you know what I mean," Sirius retorted before leaning down to whisper loudly in Lily's ear. "Sometimes Prongs has a problem with that."

James shoved Sirius hard in the shoulder, causing the Gryffindor to stumble away laughing.

"It wasn't a problem, Black, trust me," Lily said smoothly as she rose, not even phased by what Sirius had said. Both Padfoot and Prongs swiveled their heads to stare at her. The redhead took in their expressions before laughing, and Sirius put a hand to his chest.

"Merlin, you almost had me there, Red. What _were_ you two doing, if not shagging?" He asked.

"Nothing," James said quickly.

Lily, thinking he was simply preserving his manhood and desiring to humiliate him, responded honestly. "We were up all night looking for a curling charm for my gifts."

"Why were you up all night?" Sirius wondered absent-mindedly, chewing on a chocolate that was one among a large platter that had been placed on the coffee table during the night by house elves. "We learned that charm in second year. I remember because Prongs was lamenting all period that he didn't get to practice on your hair because you…were…sick…" Sirius drifted off, receiving probably the most vicious glare he had ever seen from his best mate.

But the damage was done.

"You _knew?_" Lily accused loudly, turning to James.

"Shh," James pleaded. "Lil, it's only eight, you'll wake—"

"I can't believe you _knew_ and you never—"

"What, told you?" James inquired, cutting her off. "A bit hypocritical of you, don't you think, Lil? Since you yourself knew the spell the entire time?"

James saw her angry features falter briefly, and he was then certain about something he had been debating all night.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded.

James smiled at her slowly before reaching down and picking up the thin book with a deep blue cover that she had inquired about the previous night. He opened it quickly to a page. "I'm referring to the fact that you should really make sure that the books you bring down to con me with aren't the same ones in which you took notes in the margins, Lily Evans."

He thrust the book in her face forcing her to see what he had seen almost a half hour after meeting her down in the common room the night before. Sure enough, her loopy script was wedged into the margins—unmistakable even five years later.

_Curling charm: more efficient with a counter-clockwise twist of the wrist._

Lily's face paled slightly, and James couldn't help but smile. She crossed her arms petulantly. "You told me you hadn't gone through that one yet!"

"And _you_ told me that you hadn't found anything in it when you finished," he accused with equal fervor.

"What are you two talking about?" Sirius asked.

"Go away, Black," they said in unison. Sirius scoffed.

"I was going back to sleep, anyway," he complied, walking back towards the boys' stairwell. "Unless you need me to fetch some mistletoe…No? Fine," Padfoot tossed over his shoulder, retreating after seeing their glares.

Once he was gone, Lily spoke. "Why didn't you mention that you found the charm?"

"Why didn't _you_ mention that you found the charm?" James shot back.

Lily sputtered, clearly not having an answer.

James stepped towards her, continuing on with a sly tone. "Maybe because you _wanted_ to spend time with me?"

"I could say the same of you," Lily reminded him, putting her hands on her hips.

James just rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "So this was all a ploy? Just a game to play?" he asked, not sure whether he should be bothered or happy that she had done this to be around him.

Lily's eyes softened, and she smiled her sweet, natural smile that James loved so much. "It wasn't a game, James, I promise. It wasn't even planned. I didn't realize that I had written in that until I skimmed through it, and by that time…I was having fun."

"Yeah?" he asked.

Lily's grin widened. "Yeah."

They stood there, looking at each other with gentle expressions of uncertainty—James over the emotions on her face and Lily about what in Merlin's name she was getting herself into.

He opened his mouth to say something—something immensely stupid, most likely—before changing his mind at the last minute. He cleared his throat. "All right. Well, I'd better get back upstairs before Sirius starts eating the chocolate that _my_ mum sent, despite the fact that he gets a box himself."

He chuckled lightly, remembering last year when Sirius and he had battled for the sweets. His laughter transported Lily back to the night before, feeling her shoulder and hip and feet brush up against his. "Right," she said, and he slowly turned away.

Lily was about to watch him go when she snapped out of her trance. "Wait! James, take your present." She walked over to her small mound of presents and picked up a medium-sized gift. The redhead looked down at it in her hands and smirked slightly before muttering a spell. The limp red ribbons that were tumbling over the edge of the box immediately sprung up into perfectly curled spirals. James smiled when she handed it over. Their fingers brushed as the gift was exchanged, but the heat that spread through Lily's body was nothing compared to how she felt next to him the night before.

"Thanks," he said, and as he looked down at the rest of the gifts he spotted a loathed object lying on the floor. "And I'll be taking these pincers from hell," he told her, reaching down and plucking up the pair of scissors.

Lily regarded the tool with amusement. "Fair enough."

Once again, the Head Boy turned to leave, but some kind of emotion bubbled up inside of Lily and all she knew was that she didn't want him to leave.

"James?" she stopped him again, his foot poised to step onto the staircase.

"Lily?" he said, turning around with a knowing smile.

She realized that she didn't know what to say—hell, she didn't even know what she was feeling. It seemed as though _something_ existed between her and James, but how do you start something that has already begun? The unknown words died in her throat, and, maybe for now, that was best.

"Sorry you didn't get to catch Father Christmas," she said, feeling an embarrassed blush creep up her cheeks.

The emotion in James's eyes shifted, as if he knew she'd meant to say entirely different words.

"Don't be," he responded, smiling warmly at her. Lily could feel her heart pounding in her chest. "I'm not."

**A/N: Thanks for reading! Your review would honestly make my (finals) week. Also, a huge thanks to anyone who has read/reviewed any of my stories thus far. You guys are truly awesome and I appreciate each and every one of you!**


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